A color photographic light-sensitive material for a subtractive color process comprises hydrophilic colloid layer(s) containing photographically useful compound(s) on a support.
Such photographically useful compounds include image-forming couplers, colored couplers, development inhibitor releasing couplers, fading prevention agents, antifoggants, ultraviolet absorbents, photographic dyes, color mixing prevention agents, etc. These compounds as used in photographic layers exist in nondiffusible forms, i.e., these compounds are rendered nondiffusible by a nondiffusible group composed of a relatively large organic atomic group. By rendering the compound nondiffusible, the compound added to a photographic layer is immobile in that layer and shows a photographically effective function therein.
However, by uniformly dispersing such a nondiffusible compound in a hydrophilic colloid layer such as a silver halide emulsion layer, many problems arise.
For example, when using a compound having a salt-forming group such as a sulfo group in the molecule, a method of dispersing this compound in a silver halide emulsion as a solution in neutral water is used. In this case, however, a compound having a nondiffusible group causes a problem due to its low solubility in water. Also, in a method of dispersing the compound in a silver halide emulsion as a solution in a high boiling organic solvent, the above-described compound having a salt-forming group causes a problem due to its low solubility in the organic solvent.
Accordingly, various nondiffusible groups for improving the solubility of these compounds having such groups have been proposed. For example, certain nondiffusible compounds which somewhat resemble the compounds of this invention are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,892,576 and Japanese Patent Publication No. 16058/74 (5-pyrazolone couplers having an .alpha.-position branched type aliphatic carbonamido group). However, the compounds described in these references are dispersed in a silver halide emulsion as a solution in a high boiling organic solvent. On the other hand, compounds having a salt-forming group having a low solubility in an organic solvent are required to be dispersed as a solution in water, but nondiffusible groups which are highly effective in such a case have scarcely been known.